Good day and welcome to the Robert Walters 2024 full year results webcast and conference call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Toby Fowlston, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Robert Walters 2024 full year results presentation webcast. I'm Toby Fowlston, Chief Executive, and joining me today is David Bower, Chief Financial Officer. In terms of our agenda today, I'll shortly hand over to David to take you through an operational and financial review and the early progress we've seen on the five building blocks we're focused on to drive a higher margin business in the medium term. I'll then return to give you an update on what we are seeing in the changing world of work and the confidence we have in our growth drivers. As usual, we'll leave plenty of time to then open up for Q&A. Here are my key messages for today.
Firstly, though 2024 brought a second year of very challenging conditions in global hiring markets, we began to execute our strategic plan against this tough backdrop, and we have seen some good early progress. We are managing our geographic portfolio with increased discipline, and we reposition the business to be well- placed for the rapidly changing world of work. Secondly, we remain sharply focused on costs. In 2024, we took actions to ensure our cost base is appropriate for the current end markets. In addition, we also began to realize structural cost savings in line with our disciplined entrepreneurialism strategy, with over GBP 4 million of saving already secured. This stands us in good stead for 2025, where our outlook is that an improvement in end markets is unlikely to be seen before the latter part of the year.
Thirdly, we continue to have high levels of conviction in the long-term growth drivers of the business, which has been further strengthened by the progress we have seen over 2024. There is more to go for in our largest specialist recruitment market of Japan, whilst interim management, workforce consultancy, and talent advisory offer outsized growth opportunities at above group average margins. With that said, I'll hand you over to David.
Thanks, Toby, and good morning, everyone. As Toby said a moment ago, 2024 brought a second year of challenging conditions across our industry, with subdued client and candidate confidence impacting both specialist recruitment and recruitment outsourcing. In specialist recruitment, fees were down 13%. Perm fees, accounting for around 2/3 of the mix, declined 14%, and temp, being contract and the interim management offering, were slightly more resilient, however, with fees down 10%. Within this, the performance in interim stood out, with fees down just 2%. Across our specialist recruitment markets, and with the exception of interim, we observed a similar dynamic with lower volumes of permanent placements and temps working, driving the year-on-year fee reduction. This was reflective of the muted confidence amongst clients and candidates, which slowed the pace of job moves.
Average fees, however, were slightly up year-on-year, seeing the benefit from wage inflation and underpinned by stable fee rates as clients continue to value our services. In recruitment outsourcing, fees were down 18%, with non-perm volume hiring more resilient than perm volume hiring, reflective of client caution in the financial services sector that forms much of our customer base. Within recruitment outsourcing, we did see good growth in the workforce consultancy offering, with fees up 24% on the prior year, driven by a higher average number of consultants. Our third service line of talent advisory, which launched in 2023, delivered strong operational progress, with the number of clients served almost doubling in 2024 versus the prior year. In terms of our regional segments, with the exception of the U.K., fees were down, broadly in line with the 14% reduction seen group-wide.
We've included further regional detail on the slide, which I'll leave you to digest at your leisure. Let's turn now to the financial review, where I'll begin with the group financial summary. The continued challenging conditions in hiring markets globally drove a 14% reduction in group net fee income year-on-year to GBP 321 million. Around two-thirds of that year-on-year fee income impact was mitigated through cost actions, with group operating costs falling by 9%. However, operating profit of around GBP 5 million was still clearly impacted by the reduced top-line trading. This resulted in a break-even position at the profit before tax level and a GBP 0.091 loss per share.
Net cash finished the year at GBP 52.5 million, and in view of the group's balance sheet strength, the board is proposing a final dividend of GBP 0.17 per share, which, together with the GBP 0.065 interim dividend, gives us a total dividend of GBP 0.235 per share, in line with that of the prior year. I remarked a moment ago that around 2/3 of the year-on-year fee income impact was offset through cost action. Let's now turn to look at our costs in more depth. Operating costs across the group reduced by GBP 44 million year-on-year, and with around 75% of the cost base comprising people costs, the reduction was clearly focused in this area. Average group headcount fell by 15% year-on-year, which drove a GBP 27 million reduction in fixed staff costs.
Within this, fee earner average headcount also fell by 15%, as we remained highly selective on the replacement of fee earner natural attrition through the year, while non-fee earner average headcount fell by 16%, driven by a lower level of fee earner support staff. Variable compensation fell by around GBP 11 million, reflecting the reduced trading result. Non-staff costs were also managed down during the year, falling by around GBP 6 million, and driven by lower direct operating costs such as marketing and travel. In 2024, we took the necessary actions to ensure our cost base was appropriate for the current end markets, and this resulted in us exiting the year with a monthly cost base run rate of around GBP 25 million-26 million, down from around GBP 27 million-28 million at the beginning of the year.
Turning to look at cash, we saw negative free cash flow for the year of GBP 8 million, with lower operating cash flow driven by the challenging trading performance. There was a broadly neutral working capital cash impact, with a lower year-on-year receivables balance offset by a decrease in payables. Overall CapEx of around GBP 10 million was down around a third on the prior year, principally driven by lower spend on the group's office estate, where 2023 had seen a number of refurbishment projects in some of our large offices. Intangibles CapEx, predominantly being spent on Zenith, was in line with the prior year as we roll out near its completion. Turning now to consider capital allocation. The foundation of our policy is to maintain year-end net cash of at least GBP 50 million, and our 2024 closing position was consistent with that.
As a reminder, our capital allocation priorities are set out on this slide. Firstly, we seek to fund organic investment opportunities that enhance the group's growth drivers and provide sufficient headroom above our cost of capital. For example, we have above-group average margin service line diversification opportunities in interim management, workforce consultancy, and talent advisory. In addition, we have our investment in the Zenith CRM. Our second priority is the ordinary dividend, where our policy targets a distribution that is between 1.75x-2.25x covered by earnings, albeit with a latitude, as at present, to allow cover to fall outside this range at points in the cycle. Here, the group's continued balance sheet strength gives the board confidence to propose a final dividend in line with that of the prior year.
The board remains cognizant, however, of the need to return to the targeted cover range in an appropriate timescale. Finally, should the group hold cash in excess of GBP 50 million, and should the board expect this position to continue for the medium term, we will look to return excess capital to shareholders. Turning now to look at guidance. Firstly, with regard to top-line trading, this has continued to be muted over the first few weeks of the new financial year. I would remind you that the group's Asia-Pacific weighting means the first quarter has historically been quieter. Combined with this, our planning assumption is that an improvement in end markets is unlikely to be seen before the latter part of 2025. As such, we would anticipate a slight second half weighting to fee income.
Secondly, with regards to costs, as I touched on earlier, we exited 2024 with a monthly run rate of around GBP 25 million-26 million. We take good momentum from our actions last year into 2025, and we will continue to ensure our cost base is appropriate for the current end markets, remaining highly selective on the replacement of fee earner natural attrition. Thirdly, turning to consider cash, we expect movement in cash over the first half to be in line with a typical profile, whereby payment of the ordinary dividend and fee earner bonuses drives a lower net cash position at the half year compared to the full year. That being said, and consistent with our expectations for a second half weighting to fee income over the year, we would anticipate a more balanced first half working capital cash impact than seen last year.
We have taken appropriate near-term cost actions in the current environment. We are, though, also pursuing a wider program in five specific areas, as shown on the slide, which we believe are building blocks to a higher margin business. At our capital markets event last year, we set out our conviction on how the business can operate with greater levels of efficiency and at higher rates of profitability. Let's turn now to consider the key actions we have been taking, where we saw early progress in 2024, and the opportunity ahead of us in 2025. The first building block is driving higher fee earner productivity.
This, of course, applies to all of our service lines, but given the 83% of group net fee income that comes from specialist recruitment, and that 2/3 of fees in that service line relate to permanent placements, we recognize how much of a driver of our overall financial performance perm placements per perm fee earner per month is. We increase focus on this metric around the business during the year. It is being used to allocate fee earner headcount with a greater regard to where it drives the most benefit. That said, across the specialist recruitment service line, perm placements per perm fee earner per month did decrease by 5% year-on-year, reflecting our decision not to reduce fee earner headcount wholly proportionally with volumes. However, we did see growth in this measure in Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia held flat.
We continue to see the capacity in our current fee earner base to absorb higher volumes of perm placements, with average volume productivity through 2024 about 30% below the peak levels reached in the second quarter of 2022, and around 15% below the long-run average pre-COVID. On entering 2025, our specialist recruitment teams are focusing even harder on the sales funnel, whereby well-cultivated client relationships lead to new job flow, which in turn works through the various stages of a process to end with a candidate placed in role. Our key technology investments will also continue to support increased productivity in the medium term. As a reminder, with a fundamentally relationship-based business model, we deploy technology for our fee earners that enables them to spend even more time with clients and candidates.
We are seeing the efficiency benefits of this today, and that gives us confidence on driving higher fee earner productivity from the time released. A great example of this is with our AI job ad writer, which we showed in action at our capital markets event. During 2024, the tool was used to write over 21,000 job ads, freeing up around 10,000 hours. Our rollout of Zenith, our in-house CRM, will also support higher fee earner productivity in the medium term, driven by quicker navigation of the system versus its predecessor, and the increased visibility Zenith delivers for our teams. It is great to reach the milestone in the fourth quarter of 2024 of two-thirds of our specialist recruitment business being live on Zenith following the deployment into Northeast Asia.
Our remaining rollouts into Europe and ANZ, scheduled for deployment by the half year, will complete the migration, and we're looking forward to seeing the benefits it drives across our markets. It is worth noting that whilst we place particularly high emphasis on the volume productivity element that is placement volumes per fee earner, as it is the most controllable for our consultants, overall productivity in terms of net fee income per fee earner was at 1% year-on-year in constant currency, underpinned by the stable fee rates of a service offering that clients continue to value. Turning now to the optimization in both the front and back office, we recognize an opportunity to bring greater consistency to our ways of working in the front office, particularly regarding the proportion of fee earner support staff we deploy relative to fee earners.
By the year-end, we had further rebalanced this mix such that it is in line with 2021 levels and down from a peak reached in March 2023. There is now greater consistency across our markets in how we deploy fee earner support staff and a more disciplined approach in the level of headcount required. Our actions here drove a GBP 1 million structural saving in 2024. Our back office optimization is about standardizing processes in our central functions such as HR, technology, and finance, and then, where appropriate, consolidating these activities into Global Business Services hosts, or GBS, thereby minimizing duplication in our local markets. During the year, the HR function delivered its optimization program, a new target operating model was defined, and these changes will deliver GBP 1.5 million of savings in 2025.
With our technology function having moved to a GBS model a few years ago, and HR having done so in 2024, we see the opportunity this year for other central functions to do the same. The next in scope for this year and into 2026 is the finance function, where, for example, there are good opportunities to move some transactional processing activities out of local markets and into a hub location. We anticipate some modest net in-year savings this year from doing so, which will then annualize into 2026. In aggregate, once these programs are completed across our central functions in 2026, we believe there is a structural cost-saving opportunity in excess of GBP 7 million from 2027 onwards, compared to our cost base last year. As well as this, we will have an operating model able to service higher volumes of activity as end markets recover.
We anticipate there may be scope to deliver certain benefits sooner, and we will balance this against the one-off cost implications of doing so. Turning now to consider the fourth building block, office optimization. We are appraising our office network more vigorously, and during the year, we took the decision to reduce our footprint in the U.K., France, and New Zealand by four offices. We are challenging ourselves on locations where we have not consistently been profitable, and we do not see a pathway to adequate returns. We will continue to appraise those locations in our office network where the returns profile is most challenged and, factoring in the lease renew profile, realize savings where appropriate. As well as consolidating the number of offices in our network, we'll also optimize the locations we have through proactive renegotiation ahead of lease expiry.
Our recent actions in both consolidating the network and renegotiating leases have yielded a GBP 0.5 million saving for 2026, and there are further opportunities we see arising over the rest of this year. Whilst a modest saving, the action reflects the first step of our commitment to reallocate capital to those elements of our portfolio where we can be most competitive. Finally, turning to procurement, we're really pleased with the early progress delivered here, with proactive contract and commercial reviews combined with general cost challenge delivering annualized savings of around GBP 1.4 million. In 2025, we anticipate further opportunities for saving from the element of spend that becomes addressable this year. In addition, we will be growing the capabilities to more robustly manage our transactional suppliers and drive consolidation. In conclusion then, we've made good early progress against the five building blocks of our margin improvement program.
Over GBP 4 million of structural cost savings have been delivered thus far, with opportunities identified for at least a further GBP 5.5 million savings after our GBS program completes next year. We will continue to realize benefits even prior to recovery in end markets, and this leaves us well- placed to drive expansion in the conversion rate through a strong drop-through of fees to operating profit once conditions improve. With that, I will hand you back to Toby.
Thanks, David. We are pursuing our margin improvement opportunities with clear focus. As well as this, though, we continue to have high conviction in our organic growth drivers of geographic penetration and service line diversification. We saw good progress in 2024, and there is more ahead of us for 2025. Turning first more briefly to geographic penetration.
Whilst a key element of our growth in the 2010s was focused on geographic expansion, with entry into 11 new country markets during that time, our focus is now on penetration, which means scaling in our existing markets. We shared our four-box model at the Capital Markets event, the framework through which we appraise our specialist recruitment markets, and the clear set of actions by which we manage the different quadrants of the portfolio. During 2024, we took actions in line with our framework. In markets in the top left quadrant, where the structural drivers are favorable but our internal controllable require improvement, we need to first fix before we seek to grow. David has already mentioned increased focus on the sales funnel to drive fee earner productivity, and this also provides a prime example of what fixing the basics looks like in practice.
It looks like clear expectations on how much time consultants are spending on business development and key account management so that we drive higher job flow into the top of the funnel. Importantly, this is then reinforced with scheduled monthly reviews to check progress and further course correct if required. Sometimes, reincorporating these structured processes into our business is best done with new leadership. In this way, it has been great to see the next generation of leaders taking roles in our business to accelerate the drive for disciplined entrepreneurialism in some of our markets. During 2024, we welcome new leadership in Southern Europe and also a fresh perspective in Northern Europe and Australia. In markets in the top right quadrant of the framework, with favorable structural drivers and where our internal controllable are largely being maximized, we are seeking to invest to grow our platform.
In the context of the current challenging end markets, that has meant rebalancing how our fee earner headcount is allocated, such that our platform remains strongest in these markets. Average fee earner headcount fell by 11% in this top right quadrant versus an 18% fall in markets in the top left. Perhaps the leading example in our portfolio of a geographically well-penetrated market is Japan. At the Capital Markets event, we set out the strong foundations for continuing to grow our offering there, namely the long-run skill shortages entailed by Japan's aging population and Robert Walters' differentiated position as seen in our strong brand awareness and hard-to-replicate assets, such as our candidate database of English-speaking native Japanese professionals, the largest of its kind.
Looking out over the rest of this decade, we know there is more to go for in Japan, and one indicator of this we saw in 2024 was in the temp business, where volumes grew, driving a 6% increase in temp net fee income, which represented just over a quarter of the mix. Together with the scope there is for Japan to close some of the volume productivity gap with the global specialist recruitment business, we continue to be very excited about Japan as an engine for growth of the business. Turning now to service line diversification, I remain really excited by the opportunity we have to support clients and candidates in the ever-changing world of work.
In my 25 years in the industry, this pace of change is perhaps as rapid as ever, and with the tens of thousands of candidates we match with organizations each year, we are at the forefront of seeing these shifts, some of which are highlighted on this slide. In the context of the last two years, I'm often asked why I'm confident in the long-term growth drivers of our business. A large part of the answer is the clear value we can deliver in the environment of today's hiring markets. To take one very current example, the impact of artificial intelligence on recruitment. Our conviction is that far from being disintermediated, this shift makes the role of the human recruiter even more relevant. Why? The use of AI has seen organizations flooded with applications of increasing quality and increasing similarity. This is user-generated, AI-augmented, two-dimensional data.
In response, organizations are asking, what's the truth? What we offer in our specialist recruitment service line is a three-dimensional, validated view of a candidate or, in fact, a client. We have met all our candidates and all our clients. We understand their motivations, their aspirations, their achievements, and we can validate the contents of a profile or CV. We know their stories, and no technology can replace that end-to-end. Hiring markets are changing, and we have repositioned our business in response, and this is clearly seen in our unified brand, which enables our clients to access our full suite of talent solutions. It is also seen in the service line diversification that we are pursuing.
We're focusing on investment into service lines with outsized growth opportunity and above group average margins, and these are interim management with our specialist recruitment service line, workforce consultancy within our recruitment outsourcing service line, and our talent advisory service line. In all three areas, our 2024 performance gave us further belief on the opportunity we have to drive longer-term growth. Turning first to interim management, this is where we support organizations' need for highly experienced senior professionals who are engaged on a self-employed basis for a fixed duration. Often, this is necessitated by a transformational corporate event, such as an acquisition or major technology implementation. Today, we offer this service in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Germany. As David mentioned earlier, our 2024 fee income performance, down just 2%, really stood out in the context of the pressure on volumes in the wider European temp market.
We saw average interims working slightly up year-on-year, with a broadly stable picture in the Netherlands and growth in Germany and Belgium, particularly strong in the case of the latter, offsetting a small decline in France. Furthermore, the conversion rate remained group-leading and well in excess of the upper teens medium-term target we have set for the group as a whole, underpinned by the structurally higher fee rates given the value clients place on accessing these supply short skills. Turning now to workforce consultancy, where we give organizations a solution to their non-permanent hiring needs distinct from the traditional routes of contractors and consultancies and at substantially lower cost.
Our 2024 performance with fee income up 24% year-on-year was driven by a higher average number of consultants deployed into the managed service provider client base in the U.K., which is the segment into which we launched the offering back in 2022. MSP, or non-perm volume hiring, represents just one of the pools of client demand for which we believe the workforce consultancy offering is relevant. Back at our Capital Markets event, we highlighted the opportunity for workforce consultancy to be deployed into two further client pools. Firstly, statement of work, where a procurement service for non-permanent project resources or professional services is required. Secondly, in support of organizations seeking to access early in-career talent, given our ability to hire, train, and then deploy these candidates.
We have seen excellent early progress tapping into both of these pools, with the first cohorts of consultants now deployed with clients. As we look ahead over the rest of 2025, we see a clear opportunity to drive further growth in workforce consultancy by providing solutions into these adjacent pools of client spend, alongside the managed service provider space where we already have strong credentials. Turning now to talent advisory, the most recent addition to our service lines in which we offer three core services of market intelligence, future of work advisory, and talent development. We have focused on building client awareness of the offering by leveraging our two more established service lines. We saw momentum build strongly through 2024, with the number of referrals in the second half doubling compared to the first.
It has been very pleasing to see these opportunities converting into fees, with the number of clients served in 2024 almost doubling versus the prior year. Organizations globally are grappling with challenges regarding how they cost-effectively attract, retain, and develop the talent they need to thrive. This was borne out in talent advisory serving clients in each of our regional segments during the year. Looking ahead to 2025, the reaction to the offering across our markets means we are excited about the further growing of the platform through regional engagement leads who will drive direct sales of talent advisory services. As well as boosting client awareness of our talent advisory offering, we are seeking to drive up the understanding of our own people on the full suite of talent solutions we offer.
This broader knowledge enables them to ask clients the right questions, which then lead to conversations on their wider talent challenges. We want our fee earners to remain expert in their service line, but sufficiently conversant in all the services we offer to recognize the key buying signals from our clients and make the introduction with the relevant part of the business. This awareness and sharing of leads across service lines has been accelerated by our global collaboration days. During these days, our people have come together across different service lines and across all of our global markets to better understand the range of services we have to help our clients. Now, as internal awareness grows, so does commercial opportunity. We held our second global collaboration day last month, and it yielded over 1,700 new client meetings for our business in just one day.
Boosting our own people's awareness of our suite of services reflects our conviction on what our clients need us to be for them, namely a total talent solutions provider. This was the key impulse behind our decision to bring all our services under a single brand. Getting this right for our clients will not only help us achieve our vision of being the most trusted talent solutions business, but it will help us convert a significant commercial opportunity. This is brought out well on the charts on this slide. The first, which we shared at our Capital Markets event, shows the scope to boost client awareness of our services outside specialist recruitment. As we do so, we're confident we'll see growth in the number of countries in which we're delivering all three of our service lines, up from five in 2024.
Even within a service line, greater awareness across our teams will help us convert commercial opportunities. That is brought out in the second chart, where for our U.K. specialist recruitment business, you can see we have placed candidates into two or more disciplines for only 21% of our clients in 2024. We are determined to seize these opportunities on our journey to be the most trusted talent solutions provider. In conclusion, whilst our financial performance was impacted by the challenging conditions seen across global hiring markets, 2024 was a year of strong strategic development for our business. We have seen good early progress on our self-help measures to drive structurally higher margins over the medium term, and we continue to be excited by the long-term growth drivers on which we are focused. Thank you for listening, and David and I would now be very happy to take any questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Please make sure the mute function on your phone switches after your signal to reach our equipment. Again, it is star one to ask a question. The first question is from Thomas Callan from Investec. Please go ahead.
Morning, chaps. Hope you're both well. I've got two, please. Firstly, just on the interim business, you clearly had a strong year relative to the broader group. Could you provide maybe just a bit more color on what drove the outperformance in both Belgium and the Netherlands, including your outlook for the interim sort of business overall moving through 2025?
Then just thinking longer- term, you know, as markets expand, do you sort of see the business naturally pivoting towards an increased sort of Asia-Pac focus, you know, leveraging what you've built so successfully in Japan and sort of capitalizing on those outside secular growth markets that are out there, for example, Southeast Asia that we heard quite a bit about at the CMD? Thanks.
Hi, Tom. Yeah, it's Toby here. I'll take both of those. First question on interim. I mean, look, firstly, they are well run. We have seen good growth in Belgium and Germany, where we're obviously still building out the offering. It's been, I would say, stable in the Netherlands. I mean, the drivers are really highlighted, as I was saying earlier, and common across those markets. It's a very highly skilled discipline area. There is a short supply.
I think I've touched on the past. I think psychologically, a lot of senior candidates are looking for more of those interim sort of, you know, six, nine, 12-month type contracts, perhaps a bit more of a leaning to that towards some of the C-level permanent type roles. I think outlook in the Netherlands is a bit more regulatory burden for clients to deal with, but we're very used to working through that. We are confident that interim will continue to deliver very strong conversion rates for us, and arguably in time, and it isn't now, but perhaps something for us to consider more in our Asia-Pacific markets. Longer term, I think your question on sort of APAC focus. Asia-Pacific currently 43% of fees. That's been relatively stable at that level for about the last 10 years.
As I mentioned in the presentation, there's absolutely more to go for in Japan. We had some good, strong performances in areas like Southeast Asia. Malaysia was a standout there. I think, I mean, the ultimate answer is we'll manage a portfolio in line with the four-box framework. In the top right, where we have the right to grow, there are for sure a number of Asia-Pacific markets. Equally, you know, Europe remains important. We've got strong interim presence there, and we've also got some key outsourcing HQs in the US as well. Yeah, I wouldn't, depending on the shape of the cover, I wouldn't be surprised if Asia-Pacific mix ticks up a bit.
Really clear. Thanks, guys.
The next question is from Sanjay Vidyarthi from Liberum. Please go ahead.
Morning, Toby. David, a couple of questions for me as well. First, in a market that's perhaps a bit more difficult, such as France, can you talk a little bit about how you might be pivoting from one sector to another where there might be more growth? How much opportunity is there to do that? How easy is it to do that? If, you know, your consultants are focused on one particular discipline, is there an appetite to shift to another where the growth is? Second question, just you mentioned AI and how I can see how it won't disintermediate the specialist recruiters. Could you talk a little bit about, is it in the short term at least, maybe creating extra work for you if you are inundated with applications or applicants who have used AI? How do you deal with that side of things?
Yeah, sure. Hi, Sanjay. Sorry, Toby here. I'll probably take both those as well. Let me start with the technology question. I mean, is it creating more work for us? Look, the reality is what we're seeing at the moment, it's definitely creating more work for our clients. If you get the chance, there's a very interesting article in the FT about a business called Anthropic, who is an AI startup business. Now, given even what they do as an AI startup business, you know, they are not wanting to see candidates applying to them using AI. The quote I got is, "They want to gauge applicants' personal interests sincerely and without mediation." You know, I go back to the sort of 2D, 3D analogy. I think whether it's LinkedIn technology, you're getting increasing two-dimensional data coming through.
What our clients are telling us is that, you know, it's a bit like it was in the advent of job boards, just the volume of data is immense. Obviously, we need to support them and tell them the truth on what they're receiving. I think just some other sort of ad hoc things we're seeing, you know, it's interesting, HR, we're seeing an increased need for people there. I think what you've got now is an environment where people are able to type in grievances they might have. You're seeing an increased number of applications in terms of grievances. Of course, that requires staff to support that. I think in terms of your other question, appetite to shift, my view on that is that, you know, we will take a look at P&Ls.
We have merged in France, I think you mentioned, we've merged a number of P&Ls, and we've redeployed good people into growth markets. Obviously, they have the recruitment skills. It takes a little longer to upskill in terms of the specific sector. But as you know, you know, one of our core strengths is that we tend to hire people from that sector, and then we upskill them with the recruitment training. The other key thing, of course, is the international ability to relocate people. So, you know, we've had a number of people move internally to perhaps markets that are a bit more dynamic, for example, Japan.
Okay, understood. That's great. Thanks very much.
Yeah. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We will pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. We have a question from Steve Woolf from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, morning, both. Just sort of any thoughts you have around about where we are with this log jam, whether, you know, you have seen your typical job flow coming back post-Christmas. I appreciate, you know, there's a couple of months of data, and it's a relatively soft period anyway. Just any specific sectors that you might have seen, you know, job flow being particularly strong and whether really it is just this element of, you know, candidate confidence and wishing to, you know, not wishing to leave versus the company's willingness to only have sort of the perfect candidate. I mean, it's something that's just come up on the page call. I just wonder what your thoughts were around this, you know, log jam and flexibility on both sides. Sorry, it's a very vague question.
No, that's fine. I mean, it's kind of all of it's all that you've just said, to be honest with you, Steve. I mean, there are pockets. Yeah, I was down in Asia-Pacific, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore last couple of weeks. I think there, you know, there is a sense of perhaps a bit more optimism in places like Australia. New Zealand's remaining very challenging with the public sector cuts there. Malaysia, interesting, that's a market that's done very well for us. It's also quite an attractive sort of offshoring center as well, increasingly so for clients. There's some good activity there. It's sort of market by market, sector-wise, supply chain, procurement, that's holding up very well. Legal continues to be a buoyant area. Finance, particularly transformation.
Tech is still, I mean, it's a big market for us that's still a bit slow more broadly. Nothing material really that I can comment on now. We're still seeing largely a bit of a flow through from December. I think your comment around January and February being softer months is true, given the seasonality. I think March as ever will be a critical time.
Cool. Thanks.
Thank you. If there are no further questions for this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Toby Fowlston for any additional or closing remarks.
No, just to say thank you very much for your time, and no doubt we'll see you all soon. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.